A blog about life, faith, and books.

Quilting Without a Pattern….

So, I had this idea that I was going to make a quilt. I didn’t have a pattern, or any fabric at all….but I wanted to make a quilt. I went out and bought a couple yards of black fabric, lot of fat quarter bundles, and tons of remnants on sale. Still no pattern, and no plan in sight.

This is where Pinterest came in and basically saved the day. I found this pin….

….and I figured that I could do a quilt, following the same basic idea that my final product should resemble a bookshelf filled with books. Easy peasy right?!

Finally, after about two months of cutting, and sewing and repeating that process 50 million thousand (Hey! Don’t judge, that’s what it felt like to me!) times, the top of this quilt is done!

Next I decided that I didn’t want a boring back. I was going to use a single piece of fabric, sized to fit the front then assemble it all and quilt it….well, no one ever accused me of not being ambitious so I started to cut into all of my scraps…..once again–no plan. No pattern.

On a non-quilt related note: I learned a lot about my self during this whole project 1.) I would not be able to ever quilt by hand….EVER! I love, love, love my machine and I think I’ve taken it for granted….never again! 2.) My seam ripper is my very best friend. I made lots of mistakes while sewing the books, and that seam ripper got lots and lots of use. 3.) I do lots of things on a whim….with nothing but a general idea in my head, and I think I need to do that more often. I can kind of be uptight about stuff, but if I can learn to just go with the flow, and not over analyze or over think….I can be happy with the outcome! 4.) I’m my own worst critic…and I really have to get over that. People look at the top and tell me how great it is and all I can see are imperfections. I’m still learning how to stop being so critical of my self…..

Anyway, back to the quilt. I just started cutting……4 1/4 inch squares to be exact. Lots of them. Two days it took me to cut all the scraps into the right size…for what? That I still didn’t know. Then I organized them by color Roy G. Biv style….cause that’s how I roll! After a day of thinking about it I started laying them out, again on a whim, no real though behind it…..or so I thought. Here you have it, the back of my quilt all sewn and ready to be assembled!

There is is, I can’t wait to start assembling the whole thing. I have my batting, and I’m all set to go! I just have to finish the embroidery on the bookshelf portion and that is almost done. Hopefully sometime next week I’ll start the quilting!